FINTECH Altera FPGA Solutions

High performance computing using FPGA technology is a key technology for the financial services industry. High frequency automated financial trading uses models and simulations to provide real-time assistance in decision making.

BittWare’s ultra-low latency hardware is based on Altera’s industry leading Arria 10, Stratix V, and Arria V FPGAs and provides CPU offload along with the highest performance transceivers. These boards are a robust solution for Financial Acceleration applications, providing the ultimate in low latency with up to 100GigE straight to the FPGA (no external PHY) and optional TCP/IP offload engine.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

BittWare offers FPGA-based PCIe COTS solutions to address the challenges of developing financial applications for the financial acceleration/HFT (High Frequency Trading) market.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

As well as offering high performance FPGA hardware for financial trading Sarsen can call on the expertise of a number of consultants who specialise in software and hardware integration, allowing us to provide a complete solution for your low latency and high speed financial trading requirements.

One of the companies we work with is PA Consulting, which has just introduced hardware accelerator solutions specifically for low latency networks. The Hardware Accelerator identifies bottlenecks in your current infrastructure, and highlights where improvements to transaction speed and volume can be made, for example by speeding up algorithms or by removing shared interfaces such as Ethernet/IP connections.

Contact us to find out more about the range of FPGA solutions we can offer for the Fintech market space - info@sarsen.net or 01672 511166.

Low Latency Technology - Removing the Barriers with BittWare

Low latency is the hot topic in the financial trading marketplace. Companies have to react to market events faster than the competition to make money. The round trip between the event and the final trade is quite significant...

• Event occurs at the source venue
• Information about that event is placed in a message on the wire
• Message reaches the decision-making application
• Application makes a trade decision based upon that event
• Order is sent to the trading venue
• Venue executes the order
• Order confirmation is sent back to application

All in a matter of milliseconds....

In April 2012, Fixnetix, global managed services provider for trading, market data and risk control, announced they were the first fintech (financial technology) company in Europe to offer the Altera Stratix V FPGA on the BittWare PCI Express slot-cards. The company announced late November 2010 a real-time low latency filter, iX-eCute, an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array), to solve the eternal industry conundrum of pre-trade risk, compliance and ultra-low latency execution.

BittWare's PCI Express slot-cards are the hardware boards that iX-eCute operates on whilst Altera Stratix is the industry’s highest performance FPGA with over 1 TeraFLOPS of processing. iX-eCute firmware deployment relies on minimal delays, significantly reduced jitter, energy and thermal requirements whilst commanding maximum performance per watt. BittWare offers a PCIe-compliant deployable slot-card that works out of the box, with validation, verification, and control software in place.

The S5PE from BittWare is a PCIe x8 card based on the high-bandwidth, power-efficient Altera Stratix V GX or GS FPGA. Features include -

• High density Altera Stratix V GX/GS
• PCIe x8 interface supporting Gen1, Gen2, or Gen3
• 2 QSFP+ cages allows dual 40GigE or 8 10GigE interfaces direct to the FPGA for lowest possible latency
• Up to 16 GB of DDR3 SDRAM with optional ECC
• Utility I/O includes: USB 2.0, RS-232, and JTAG

iX-eCute on the BittWare board with Altera Stratix processing is available for purchase through Fixnetix.

Spotlight On… The First Exhibition of the Year!

It’s still only January, but we're not letting the snow hold us back - we are already gearing up for our first event of the year!

Sarsen Technology will be at the Low Latency Summit with BittWare, showcasing the latest Altera Stratix V FPGA hardware for financial trading.

Held at the America Square Conference Centre on 19th Feb 2013, the Low Latency Summit focuses on the evolution of high performance technology underpinning profitable automated trading strategies, with a focus on real life experience from the European marketplace.

This is the only event for the financial markets to examine these kinds of technologies, and align them to the trading process. Alongside the conference program, an 'exhibits' area will allow real-life solutions to be demonstrated.

BittWare recently announced special pricing on their S5-PCIe-HQ PCIe COTS board, specifically for use with Altera's Software Development Kit (SDK) for OpenCL. The Altera SDK for OpenCL enables FPGAs to work in concert with the host processor to accelerate parallel computation, at a fraction of the power compared to hardware alternatives.

Come and meet the BittWare and Sarsen Technology teams on Stand 105 to learn more about the very latest Altera Stratix V FPGA hardware and software technology including the OpenCL tools designed for low-latency financial trading applications.

Full details of the event can be found on the www.low-latency.com web site.

We look forward to seeing you there!!

Super Speed HFT with BittWare FPGA PCIe boards

High Frequency Trading is made even faster with FPGA Solutions from BittWare!

In layman’s terms, high-frequency trading (also known as HFT) is the buying and selling of stocks at super fast speeds, with the help of very powerful computers. Using complex algorithms, these computers can scan dozens of public and private marketplaces at the same time and execute millions of orders a second.

High-frequency trading is highly dependent on ultra-low latency as well as ever-faster analysis/data correlation. The products used also need to achieve maximum performance per watt to minimize energy and thermal requirements. BittWare offers a range of FPGA-based PCIe COTS solutions to address the challenges of developing financial applications.

BittWare’s Stratix V PCIe cards offer the industry’s highest performance FPGA for network and algorithm acceleration. These boards provide the ultimate in low latency with high performance FPGA transceivers (no external PHY) and optional TCP/IP offload engine. With maximum processing performance per watt to minimize energy and thermal requirements and QDR II/II+ combined with 10GigE straight to the FPGA (no conversion to XAUI) for ultra-low latency, BittWare’s PCIe boards are ideal for applications in the High Frequency Trading (HFT) market.

Fixnetix, global managed services provider for trading, market data and risk control, were the first fintech (financial technology) company in Europe to offer the Altera Stratix V FPGA on the BittWare PCI Express slot-cards. The Altera Stratix V FPGA with integrated 10GigE and BittWare PCIe Gen 3 slot card is ideal for iX-eCute, the Fixnetix FPGA firmware for nanosecond trading and pre-trade risk checks across multiple asset classes. BittWare PCI Express slot-cards are the hardware boards that iX-eCute operates on whilst Altera Stratix is the industry's highest performance FPGA with over 1 TeraFLOPS of processing.

If you would like more information about how the BittWare hardware could work in your application please give us a call on +44 1672 511166, or drop us an email!

BittWare to Exhibit at SIFMA 2012

June 19-20, 2012         Hilton New York

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) Tech Expo draws the top technology exhibitors providing services to the financial services industry. It brings together the shared interests of hundreds of securities firms, banks and asset managers. These companies are engaged in communities across the country to raise capital for businesses, promote job creation and lead economic growth.

BittWare has designed and developed a family of PCIe format Altera Stratix V FPGA hardware optimised for the financial trading market.  Ron Huizen, Darren Taylor and Chad Hamilton from BittWare will be exhibiting at SIFMA next week on booth #1823, showcasing their (growing) Stratix V family of PCIe cards.  

More than 70 senior regulators and industry experts will participate in 29 educational sessions on the foremost issues facing financial technologists, and the event is expected to bring together more than 4,000 industry-leading professionals to discover the latest trends and solutions.

If you would like to visit BittWare at the SIFMA Tech Expo please give us a call on +44 1672 511166 to arrange a time.

Please contact Sarsen Technology for full details of the full range of PCIe format Altera Stratix V FPGA hardware and software developed for this market. E - info@sarsen.net 

http://www.sarsen.net/dept/financial-trading_d0145.htm

Low-Latency Summit London 2012

Tim Norris, Robbie Burns & Nigel Norman participated in the Low-Latency Summit for High Frequency Financial Trading yesterday. Altera showcased a BittWare S5-PCIe Altera Stratix V FPGA PCIe format board on their booth. Burkhard Jour represented BittWare at the event organised the by the A-Team Group. The event was held at America Square Conference Centre and highlighted the issues around implementing new technologies such as large FPGAs in the HFT market space. There was a good and informed attendance. There was also a nice contrast between high technology such as the Altera Stratix V FPGA with 3.9 billion gates and the 2000 year old Roman wall next to the exhibition space.

Link to the Low-Latency Summit web site:

Low-Latency Summit 2012

FPGA Solutions for Automated Financial Trading Market

Busy with lots of new opportunities for the BittWare S5-PCIe Altera Stratix V FPGA board in the automated financial trading market http://bit.ly/vL8e2v

Altera Stratix V FPGA Board for Automated Financial Trading Applications

The BittWare S5-PCIe is the industry's first Altera Stratix® V FPGA-based COTS board and is optimised for high performance computing military, telecommunications test equipment and financial trading applications. The Altera Stratix V FPGA has 3.8 billion transistors and is optimised for demanding computing applications. New project opportunities in the automated financial trading market is keeping us very busy this month.